Monday, 11 June 2012

Band To Check Out: China Rats

Article by KevW

You can probably guess from their image that Leeds group China Rats take a certain amount of inspiration from traditional British guitar bands, and although there's the vague scent of lad-rock about songs like 'She Never' and 'Take No Prisoners', this is tempered by a passion for 50's pop and classic punk bands. The buzz-saw-guitar driven 'N.O.M.O.N.E.Y' captures the spirit of The Ramones and is ripe for a right good pogoing to. There's a hint of glam here and a hint of indiepop there. Debut single 'To Be Like I' adds a dollop of pop into the mix and the results are great.

If you delve into the list of alternative guitar bands that have made an actual dent on culture in the past decade or so (The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys etc.) you can hear that China Rats follow the same lineage. Whether they can achieve the same success only time will tell, but they've made good progress considering they only formed last year, receiving plays on 6 Music and Radio 1, and on record sound tight and full of energy. This spirit and vibrancy might just be enough to see them gathering more attention in the next year or so, so don't be surprised if you're hearing a lot more of them before too long.